Building from the Real You

February 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Social Media Cafe

Social Media Cafe (Photo credit: Cristiano Betta/Flickr photo)

When I first started developing an “online presence” I, like most newbies, thought that everyone who ever put an eBook together must have had something unique to say. I wanted to know everything I could about the ways of social media and more than anything wanted to make a big splash for myself.

What I found over time was that most people writing eBooks are just re-purposing the same set of “must haves/must reads/must do’s” and that making a big splash online wasn’t really me in the first place. I found that what really made me happy was building my business from the real me.

Having gone through this experience, I would like to make three suggestions for anyone trying to build an online presence for either fun or profits (or both):

  1. Start by understanding you! Social media and the internet allow for you to present yourself in anyway that you like. Lasting success online will come by building from the real you.
  2. Build organically! Great conversations with people who know, like, and trust you are always better than “spitting in the wind.”
  3. Learn the proper blend of life and business. I really don’t care what you had for lunch, but do want to know enough about you to suggest your favorite quiescence when we meet for a business lunch. I want to do business with the real you!

What lessons have you learned in your time online? How to you share the real you in the online world? What suggestions do you have for new people/businesses trying to make there way in social media?

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Designing Success, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

When Social Media Turns Ugly!

February 22, 2012 by 13 Comments
English: Infographic on how Social Media are b...

Image via Wikipedia

I spend a lot of time on social media channels these days and I have found that since we”marketing experts” have discovered them, they have really lost their desire for simple people like me. I will admit openly and without reservation that I embraced these channels of communication and considered with glee the great opportunity they provided for business growth and expansion. However, after becoming the victim of the insanity, I finally came to understand that these wonderful opportunities for small and quiet voices to be heard had been overtaken by the loud voices of “the market” and their ability to control the whole system.

 

Everywhere you go (from Facebook to Pinterest to LinkedIn to Twitter and beyond) the social stream is less and less social and more and more another channel to inundate the public with more and more “stuff.” Even the concept of “inbound marketing” where content is supposed to be free and limited so as to create a greater sales cycle.

 

I am not against the use of social media for business purposes, but I am dismayed that nearly everything you read these days is a “not so veiled” sales pitch. This post marks a change in thought (as well as direction) for me. I am still going to provide what I hope will be great and informative content to my friends and readers, but I am going to let the decision to work with me professionally be entirely yours.

 

The result may be a lessening of readership, a fewer numbers of “lead captures,” and maybe even less income for our company as well as for me, but I am ready to do the right thing. How about you? What do you think would bring you to such a decision? Is it important for your company to be seen in this kind of light or is money and growth all that is important? Would love to hear your thoughts!

 

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Designing Your Personal Brand

February 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Over the past year and a half of working with entrepreneurs and start-up companies, the concept of personal branding has come up time and time again and so I thought that I would talk a little about what I have learned over the past few months of planning and launching this new business.

  • Branding is about creating a perception of you and the business you operate as being of value to your potential clients.
  • Branding puts you at the top of people’s thinking when they consider buying your product/service within your chosen niche.
  • Branding makes you stand out from the crowd when people are choosing who they will buy from or work with.

So … how do you begin the process of branding yourself to your niche?

First of all take some time and decide what kind of business you want to build. You cannot brand yourself as an expert in a particular niche if you do not like working in that niche or with the people who populate that niche. When you have no desire to work in a particular area, you will not do your best for either yourself or your clients. You need to only consider niches that wake you up in the morning and keep you up at night!

Next, you need to decide how your skills can benefit those who work/play in the niche that you have chosen. Think about what they might want and need. Find out their likes and dislikes. Then design your business and your brand around what will cause them to take notice of you.

Then, design and deliver a marketing plan that will do two critical things: generate leads and convert the leads into customers/clients. This is where most people fall short in their branding efforts. They spend lots of time designing logos and developing their slogans, but when those things are done the campaign to get all of that out to potential customers/clients just doesn’t happen.

You should always keep the whole picture in view while building your personal brand. That “whole picture” requires lots of innovative thinking that will not only give you place as an expert in your chosen niche, but will also create a system that will market your expertise to that niche.

What do you think? How have you created and maintained your personal brand?

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Designing Success, Small Business Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Trap of the Internet and Social Media

January 9, 2012 by 5 Comments


Starting a new business in the current business environment is as exciting as at any time in history. With the ability to be “seen” not only in your local market but also in every market around the world via the internet and the use of social media is just incredible.

Yet, with such powerful tools available, new businesses can also fall victim to the trap of the internet and social media. What I mean by this is that new businesses can easily get mesmerized by the power and reach of both the internet and social media and come to believe that if they are simply “out there” that success is guaranteed.

I remember having a conversation with a business owner who was in the second year of her business. She was a very savvy business woman who had used her internet and social media skills to launch her business a year prior to our conversation. What stunned her though was that now in her second year of business things weren’t going nearly as well and she was not getting the new business that had seemed to come so easily to her in the first year of business.

She recognized that her internet and social media efforts, which had been a large part of her first year success, were not bringing the same return as in the first year. As she considered her options, she began to reach out to her personal network and developed new products to make available to her local market. She continued with her online efforts as well, but learned that being online alone is not enough. You need to have a balanced approach to marketing that is strong both on as off line.

Don’t fall into the trap! The internet and social media can play a very powerful role in the success of your business, but for most businesses they cannot be your sole efforts.

What have you seen in your business? What other marketing efforts are you using to maximize your success model?

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Internet, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

New Year, New Site, New Business

January 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment


With the coming of the new year, Doulos Marketing Group is changing. We are re-launching the company as a full fledged business development company whose purpose is to help entrepreneurs design success!

In order to make a clean break from Doulos Marketing, we are launching a new website that you can visit starting today, January 3, 2011. With all the posts that are on this site, we will be leaving the site up for some time to preserve the posts that are more easily found here than transferred to the new site.

On the new site you will find that The Doulos Group stands ready to help entrepreneurs with the desire to design success for themselves and their businesses. We believe that, you, your dream, and your efforts can, with the proper leadership and guidance, can make your business dreams come true. Let us show you how to design success!

Stop by and visit us today and don’t forget to tell us what you think!

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

So we gotta say goodbye

December 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Coffee on the beach (BBE) [46/365]

Image by Terence S. Jones via Flickr

I am writing this post with a sense of sadness and reluctance. As of this post, BabyBoomEntrepreneurs.com is signing off. Now don’t loose hope, what is happening is that I am going to move all of the information from BBE to my primary business site (Doulos Marketing).

My concern for the plight of Boomers in this crazy world economy is as fervent as ever, I am just having a difficult time making everything fit into my life these days and with so much of what I post here really duplicated at Doulos Marketing, I have made the decision to combine the two.

So, we gotta say good-bye for now, but check in over at Doulos Marketing and let’s get reacquainted there! You can also follow me on Twitter @doulosmarketing (Business) or @davewellman (Personal) and check out my personal perspective on the pursuit of the quiet and peaceable life at DaveWellman.net.

The run is not over, its just changing locations! Come join in and “let’s rock!”

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Boomers Helping Boomers Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Tired of all the “gurus”!

November 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

When I first started blogging and working in the area of social media, I read everything that the “gurus” were saying about social media and how to get noticed online.

After several years of reading and following these “gurus” I have come to the conclusion that I am tired of all the “gurus”! It seems that, for the most part, they are self-serving and only want to sell their wares. I’m not opposed to “selling your wares” as long as they have real value to individual clients. I struggle with so many people calling themselves “gurus” when all they have done is “parrot” what everyone else is saying.

For we Boomers who are looking for ways to reinvent retirement, these “gurus” can hook us early and we end up trying to create businesses that look like everyone else. These bland and unimaginative businesses fail as often as the averages suggest. And the “gurus” just keep on “teaching” the same worn ideas to another set of honest, hard-working people.

What Boomers need as they consider creating retirement businesses is for those who would be business/life coaches to consider them first. To help them think through and investigate what they want and how they want to do things. They don’t need “gurus” teaching tired systems, but rather they need honest people looking to help them find the business that makes their retirement years all that they have hoped for them to be.

So, if you are tired of all the “gurus” then take time to look for the right help that will help you help you reinvent retirement in the way that makes the best sense to you!

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Boomers Helping Boomers, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

All Blogged Out – Getting Your Blog Read Amidst the Noise!

September 30, 2011 by 4 Comments
Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment. Before 1920.

Image via Wikipedia

I was talking with a friend the other day about the way social media was going. I was speaking from the perspective of someone who see social media as an essential and exciting tool for doing business, she from the perspective of someone who is inundated with blog posts and social media sales pitches to the point that she is tired of them all. In this conversation, my friend told me that she was all blogged out!

The truth is that my friend is right! Everyone has a blog these days and businesses with the proper view of blogging and who have taken the right approach are being drowned out by the plaid panted, white shoe wearing, snake oil salesmen who have discovered social media. The influx of these folks has turned many an interested blog reader into an uninterested blog hater. The are simply all blogged out.

So, how does a blogger with the right intentions (producing real and valuable content, asking real questions, and engaging their clients in the processes of innovation and improvement) create and grow the readership of their blog in the midst of all the noise?

Three quick thoughts:

  1. Be true to your business and its purpose. Too many blogs these days build readership with wild claims and crazy ideas that rarely if ever create lasting results. Your blog should be built just like any successful business platform: Satisfied customers who know you, like you, and refer you to their friends!
  2. Build your readership organically. This is simply the best way to guarantee a solid and continual readership. As you gain the respect of your audience with good articles that set you apart as a true thought leader in your field, they will begin to pass your good information and advice on to those who they influence as well. People sharing your content has a far greater effect than if you try to force it down someone’s throat.
  3. Build a level of consistency that people can count on. When you start blogging, the question of when and how often to blog is always a question that you must answer. While the answer is based on many factors, you must determine what is going to work for you and your customers and then stick to it. If you are going to have a blog that has an integral place in your companies overall marketing/sales strategy, you must make time for it and the content you share. A lack of consistency will make your posts part of the noise and not considered worth reading.

 

So, if you are really interested in sharing your knowledge with your current and potential clients through a blog, you have got to be able to cut through the noise and reach people who otherwise are all blogged out. Take this advice, build consistently, and watch your readership and your reputation grow your business!

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Since my last post at Doulos Marketing

September 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Business along Vliet Street, the northern boun...

Image via Wikipedia

I mentioned in my last post that time seemed to always be moving faster than I was and that staying consistent with my writing was therefore taking a back seat. So, I decided to take a short break from the blog and just look for personal answers to the what and why of Doulos Marketing.

Since my last post, I have answered both questions.

  1. Doulos Marketing Group is a business designed to help entrepreneurs and small businesses create the business of their dreams. The emphasis will be on the “creative” side of the equation, but the operational side will be considered as well, with the help of some very good friends of mine.
  2. Doulos Marketing Group exists because there are very few companies that exist who really care for the well being of the “boot-strap” businesses. People who have great ideas but because of under-capitalization and/or a lack of business and/or marketing skills don’t know how to move their ideas (dreams) to fruition.

With the what and why in place, now it is time to produce. Over the next few months, you will see a package of content come out that, if learned and followed, will help any “creative” take their great idea from concept to producing business. There will also be a seminar series and a training site developed for ongoing and specialized training.

I hope you like the changes to Doulos Marketing and I hope that they are helpful to you and to those new and excited businesses that have yet to be organized. Check back often and as always make sure to make your voice know!

Talk more later ….

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

My 100th Post – What is a Successful Business?

August 26, 2011 by 2 Comments

Well ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages I want to welcome you to my 100th post at Doulos Marketing! In many respects it seems like I just started and in other ways it seems like I have bee doing this for ever. Now with 100 posts under my belt, I thought I would go back to my core thought and speak to it again.

What is a Successful Business?

 

What do you think? How do you define a successful business? Is there more to life than just money?

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Social Entrepreneurship Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
«Older Posts